Ian Kiernan: The Prince, 4000 Coke cans and a mission to clean up the world

Environmentalist Ian Kiernan would always cast himself as just a regular Aussie bloke with a simple plan.

But he was also a maverick, with a mischievous twinkle in his eye who knew how to get tough in the trenches.

That could mean annoying one of the biggest companies on the planet, or tackling and headlocking a potential gun-wielding assassin firing blank shots at Prince Charles.

Ian Kiernan, Chairman and Founder of Clean Up Australia at the Clean Up Australia day campaign 2004. ()

Kiernan, who died today aged 78 after a battle with cancer, will long be remembered for the soft green footprint he left on the world, and rightly so.

Since 1990, his Clean Up Australia campaign has lifted the equivalent of 350,000 ute loads of rubbish from Australia's land, beaches, waterways and oceans. His vision to clean up Sydney Harbour – which was the keen yachtsman's beloved backyard - eventually spread across the world.

Less well known is the time in 1994 when Kiernan jumped on top of 24-year-old Australian man, David Kang, who had menacingly rushed Prince Charles while firing two blank shots from a pistol.

Prince Charles had taken the stage to make an Australia Day speech at Tumbalong Park in Sydney's Darling Harbour. Only moments earlier, Kiernan, a round-the-world yachtsman, had been named Australian of the Year.

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Standing in the crowd was Kang, an anthropology student at Macquarie University. Kang was armed with a starting pistol. He planned to use the day and gun to protest the treatment of several hundred Cambodian asylum seekers held in detention camps in Australia.

Ian Kiernan was among a group of men who tackled David Kang to the stage floor. Prince Charles (right) watches on. ()

Footage of those 20-or-so seconds on January 26, 1994 where many feared an assassination was underway, is quite remarkable.

Prince Charles, wearing a dark suit, rose and walked to the microphone, preparing to address the crowd. At the same time, Kang leaped a small fence and made a dash for Charles. The Prince of Wales fastens the strap of his watch as chaos unfolds. Two shots ring out.

Kiernan, who was seated on stage, and a huddle of burly plain clothes security guards, swarm Kang. The student is quickly subdued and rumbled to the ground. Kiernan applies a firm headlock on the youngster. Confused, the murmur of the crowd grows louder. Several shrieks pierce the air. Charles is escorted away from the scuffle.

Afterwards Kiernan said Charles had told him the attack had reminded him of a time he was charged by an elephant in Kenya.

Prince Charles reacts with surprise as he meets Ian Kiernan, the Chairman of Clean Up Australia Day, during a reception at Government House in Sydney, 2005 (AAP)

"Prince Charles was fantastic. He was as cool as a cucumber," Kiernan told reporters.

"I thought it was a stunt for a minute, and then I thought 'no, this is serious,'" he said.

"I came round from the second row and just got a good headlock on him."

Kiernan was prepared to push the rules to get things done and make a difference.

While competing in the 1987 BOC Challenge solo around-the-world yacht race, Kiernan was shocked by the pollution and rubbish he'd encountered on the high seas. The experience inspired Clean Up Australia Day.

In 2013, 23 years after that first Clean Up day, Kiernan led a small group of environmental campaigners to the doors of Coca-Cola's headquarters on Sydney's North Shore.

They were lugging bags containing 4000 Coca-Cola company cans and bottles which had been fished from the Cooks River in Sydney's south. They intended to dump the bags outside the office.

Greenpeace Australia boss David Ritter was there that day alongside Kiernan, holding bags of cans and plastic bottles. In what was an "extraordinary day", Ritter said around a dozen "extremely polite, very embarrassed" police officers were waiting for them outside the Coca-Cola office.

In 2005 Clean Up Australia chairman Ian Kiernan deposits plastic drink bottles in a huge waste basket set up in Sydney's Hyde Park after announcing a refund scheme to encourage people to recycle their plastic bottles. ()

The showdown had followed Coke's recent federal court victory to dismantle a Northern Territory recycling scheme. Coca-Cola, Schweppes Australia and Lion Pty Ltd had all been opposed to a 10c deposit scheme in NT, which was similar to the South Australian program in operation since 1977.

The beverage companies argued those kind of recycling schemes did not work. But Kiernan believed Coke didn't like the idea because it added 10c to the price of its drinks.

Ritter recalled one of the police officers informing Kiernan that if he or the others came any closer to Coke's building they would be arrested.

Kiernan responded by telling police that was going to be problematic as he had a wedding to get to that afternoon, Ritter said.

"Ian was just a beauty," Ritter said, adding Australia had lost "one of its Elders" today.

"He had that Australian maverick approach to things. It came from a big heart and a love of the place where we are.

"There was a devilish twinkle inside of him which was prepared to say some hard things and do some mischievous things."